Does every team need a Talisman?

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

I've always maintained a team can achieve more than the sum of its parts, but every team also seems to need a talisman.

Brentford are very average but have Mbeumo, Palace have Eze, West Ham have Bowen, Cunha at Wolves. We haven't got anyone. MLT kept us up for years on end and more recently we've had Ings and JWP. Now no-one even looks likely to pick up the mantle. Leicester also have no-one and both teams are really struggling.

[Turkish]

by talisman do you mean one very good player? Yes, it certainly helps. 

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

Exactly. Doesn't even have to be a striker. A top midfielder like Maddison would work

[Harry_SFC]

Ipswich have Delap. I still think that was the biggest cock up we made in the summer. Not being able to agree a deal with him before he went to Ipswich. 

[S-Clarke]

At any level, you need good players for the level you are at. Ultimately the good player/stand out player becomes the talisman for the team, as we had with Rickie or Fonte, Ings etc.

There are no talisman in this team because we have no good players for this level. Our only two technically capable players are Dibling and Fernandes, the rest are lumbering piles of shit at PL level. We should have learnt our lesson because we've tried this story before with Aribo, Armstrong, Bednarek, Stephens etc.

Edited Sunday at 18:51 by S-Clarke

[Patches O Houlihan]

Our talisman is Wee Man

I'll get my coat...

[Holmes_and_Watson]

A massive heavy talisman to give to each of our opponents, so we have a chance of keeping up with them during a game.

[CanadaSaint]

It doesn't qualify as a talisman but one thing I think we've really lacked in the last two years is a good dressing room leader. The best ones are respected by the other players for their contribution, commitment and consistency - not necessarily silky skills. They're willing to call out players (on or off the pitch) whose standards drop below required levels - or who keep making the same mistakes, and they support younger pros who are learning their trade. While they are loyal to the manager, they have a good finger on the dressing room pulse, and they're willing to have frank conversations with the manager, in private, when they think he's missing stuff he should be seeing.

A good captain can make a team better, and can make a manager better - especially a manager with narcissistic traits.

If ever a manager needed a strong captain to help him make his theory-football work, it was Russell Martin. He needed to temper his possession-obsession with some pragmatism, but I suspect that he valued loyalty to him above everything else (including ability), and picked his captain(s) accordingly. So I'm not sure that he ever got to hear any of the "home truths" he desperately needed to hear from the players.

[Matthew Le God]

4 hours ago, Turkish said:

by talisman do you mean one very good player? Yes, it certainly helps. 

Our best player is our keeper, but that doesn't help when he is behind a shit show of a team!

[Saint_clark]

You're being very harsh on Brentford, they have some proper quality in there. Dismissing Mbuemo as a talisman is an odd one for certain. 

[Ted Bates Statue]

4 hours ago, OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint said:

Leicester also have no-one and both teams are really struggling.

I agree to your overall post as it has crossed my mind a lot recently, although I would actually say Leicester are a prime case in point.

They are so lucky to have had a striker average around 15 goals a season and they've managed to hold onto him all this time. He's got 6 already this season FFS.